Piedmont Healthcare is offering nurse new hires up to $30,000 in sign-on bonuses to join the Atlanta-based hospital system, joining a tide of healthcare companies advertising sky-high bonuses as a way to stymie staff shortages.
In Wisconsin, Aspirus Health Care is offering nurses a $15,000 sign-on bonus. In Texas, Baptist Health System will give new nurses up to $20,000 as a thanks for joining. And in Oklahoma, ads still appear for Integris Health's $25,000 sign-on offer.
Piedmont said it will offer the bonus to nurses through July, so long as they commit to working at the 11-hospital network for at least two years. The bonuses are for nurses in critical care, intensive-care units, the emergency department and other specialties. Piedmont is also offering up to $18,000 in sign-on bonuses for respiratory therapists.
"Our offering of enhanced sign-on bonuses has penetrated the market and encouraged travel nurses to come off the road and has encouraged nurses outside the state to come to Georgia for full-time employment with our organization," Piedmont said in a statement. "With this campaign we are achieving the intended result."
This initiative reflects the staffing strains COVID-19 has placed on the healthcare industry.
Before the pandemic, an aging population and workforce had already caused demand for nurses to outpace supply. The national need for registered nurses is expected to grow 7% by 2029 to 3.3 million workers, according to the American Association of Colleges and Nursing. The industry group expects there to be 175,900 openings for new nurses each year. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics has named nursing as one of the most in-demand, fastest-growing occupations.
Meanwhile, the pandemic caused nurses to leave salaried hospital positions at record rates, with concern over unsafe working conditions, burnout and and the opportunity to earn more as a traveling nurse inspired employees to quit.
Some healthcare companies have looked to technology to stymie this shortage. Hospitals have turned to telemedicine as a way to stretch their staff, and invested in electronic health record upgrades as a way to cut down the administrative burden on nurses. Other health systems have used apps to predict when and where their nurses will be most needed.
Still others are using education as an attraction. Mission Health is offering free courses to anyone who wants to be a certified nurse assistant, and paying students $12.50 an hour for attending classes. The North Carolina-based health system will offer program graduates a $1,000 sign-on bonus, according to ABC13. Mission Health currently has more than 400 openings for nurses across its system.
"The nursing shortage is a big issue," Rhonda Robinson, director of clinical education programs at Mission Health, told ABC13. "This is one way to help with that issue. It is a way of growing on your own. You teach these people to be a CNA, they start working as a CNA and then you encourage them to go on."
